People Like Us
by genies9
Summary: A Yeerk finds sympathy for his host as his disillusionment with the Empire grows.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This story takes place in an Alternate Universe where the Animorphs do not exist-or at least don't have morphing powers/an impact on this story. 

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**Chapter 1** **\- Ben**

My name is Priton Six-Two-Four.

The first sensation that I experienced, as I stretched myself through the ear canal and out, to touch the brain of my first host, was _panic_. Fresh, cold panic. It was like an electric jolt through me as I persevered further, accessing more of the human's mind, greedily sinking into crevices, trying to take control as quickly as possible to make it _stop_.

Breaths came out in short gasps. The heart pounding in my ears was the first thing I heard. The first movement, before I even opened my new eyes, was to unclench the still mostly immobile fists. They had been held so tight that I could feel marks in the skin where fingernails had dug in. I forced the body to relax, forced my breathing to even out. And then I opened my eyes.

The thing about the Sharing is that, even though its entire point is to draw in voluntary controllers, not every person who comes into that little room where they become a "full member" leaves with an extra passenger voluntarily. Sometimes the realization of their mistake comes too late. Once you agree to become a full member, there's no real going back.

The voice that was screaming at me in my head as I was released wasn't giving me a headache because he _wanted_ me there. He was a twenty-two year old kid, a college senior fast approaching the unknown realm of life after graduation. His family-all two of them-didn't live nearby, with his younger sister off at school up north, and the aunt who'd taken them in after his parents' deaths living just far enough away that he couldn't see her regularly. Soft-spoken, _shy_ ,he was liked well enough, but he wasn't the sort to attract a group of friends easily. He was lonely. The Sharing was a way for him to find friends. They promised to help him find a job when he graduated.

If nothing else, at least it couldn't be said that those promises hadn't been kept. He was finishing up his student teaching gig, and it was always useful to have our people in schools-for recruitment. For providing cover. And, of course, he would never be lonely again.

That first, intoxicating moment of sensation-sight, sound. More to touch than I'd ever had at my disposal. The taste of the cold air of that room on my tongue. The smell of sweat and panic in my nostrils. That first moment's supposed to be like magic-wondrous and impossible to describe with the right words. Like you've been buried underground your entire life and suddenly the ground opens up above you and the light shines in at last.

 _No! No!_

I wanted him to shut up. Go away, little human. I wanted peace in my own head-isn't that the point of voluntary controllers? They don't cause you trouble. They're supposed to behave and let you do whatever it is you need to do. At least that's what I assumed. That's what people said, more or less. But this host wasn't voluntary, and I couldn't help feeling a little like I'd been cheated there. Like they'd given me a defective host. Most hosts are involuntary-I knew that. I wasn't stupid-but expectation's a funny thing. You know you're being assigned somewhere, and then it isn't what you expected, what you wanted. But a body's a body, I guess. Only an idiot complains out loud if it's not exactly what he thinks it's going to be.

The body had a name. His name was Ben.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2** **\- Trash**

Despite what I might have thought in the beginning, I soon had what I wanted anyway. Quiet disapproval was better than screaming, anyway, and that was mostly what I got from Ben. Not that it was _entirely_ quiet, of course. But my host became the background noise in my head, like a song that occasionally pops up to linger for awhile before fading again. Which was just fine, because outside our shared head space, I had more than enough to deal with.

For someone so quiet, Ben had a shockingly disorganized life. His tiny apartment could technically be called a one bedroom-or at least, the landlord was calling the extra room with the walls that didn't quite go all the way to the ceiling a "bedroom." Mostly so he could charge more for it. I wondered if that was legal, briefly, then decided I didn't actually care.

The first thing I set out to do was to clean the place. It wasn't a pig sty, but it seemed like someone had made the occasional half-hearted attempts to clean before giving up. "Cleaning" mostly involved clearing away the clutter. Which was easier said than done. The kitchen table was mostly covered in life debris-papers, a plastic grocery bag with the receipt still in it but no actual groceries, a library book that was past due-my fault, technically-an empty tupperware, and, seemingly just to send me into a panic of my own, a stack of bills that effectively stopped me from trashing the whole pile. The bills turned out to have already been paid, but it only really proved the point that most of it was junk. "Why would you keep this?" I asked aloud, holding up an electric bill. It was meant to be a rhetorical question. I could see the reason well enough on my own.

 _I forgot about it._

I raised an eyebrow. The "voice" was defensive, but it was still more than I'd expected. I'd mostly felt compelled to break the interminable silence of the apartment. We got all of two channels on the television, the only radio in the apartment came from the alarm clock next to the bed. It was talking to myself or hoping the neighbor's dog would start barking again.

I discovered quick enough that I could goad Ben into saying something once in awhile by messing with the "order" of his life. Not that it was imperative that he talked, or anything. But I was bored. It amused me. And we were neither of us social creatures by nature, so when the desire to talk to someone did present itself, Ben was usually my only option.

The only thing he seemed to have splurged on in his apartment were books. Granted, they were usually from the bargain bin of the used bookstore, but they made for fun material nonetheless.

"You know, if you didn't buy so many of these, you could probably use the money to buy a second bookshelf." There were little piles of books that wouldn't fit on the lone bookshelf scattered around the apartment. The television sat on a rolling cupboard that held a VCR and a few tapes, all of which looked about the same quality as his book collection-which, of course, carried over into whatever space wasn't filled with tapes. Pulling one from that pile, I waved it around, saying, "Look at this. Is that supposed to be a laser gun on the cover? Made by who, Milton Bradley? It looks like a toy." And this would go on, until either I got bored again, or I was rewarded with-

 _What is_ wrong _with you?_

I just grinned, tossing the book haphazardly back where it had come from.

To be fair, not everything I did to my host was intended to drive him crazy. I did actually ignore him most of the time. But even when I thought I was being kind, Ben seemed violently disagree.

At the school, there was a fellow student teacher. Ben had known him before, but they had not spent a great amount of time in each other's company. But that odd fluttery feeling humans seem to get when they experience attraction was present, and I thought. Well. Nothing was going to come of it, but I could briefly entertain anything to save me from a headache for awhile.

And so I sought out this man. Our lunch periods coincided-when there wasn't something to do during lunch, anyway, which there very often was-I would find him in the staff lounge.

 _What are you even doing?_ Ben demanded one day as we were headed back from lunch. _He's mentioned an ex-girlfriend, remember?_

 _So?_ I didn't see how that was relevant.

Ben made an exasperated "noise." _I'm not gay._

 _I never said you were._ Again, I didn't see how this was relevant. Humans seemed to mostly have sex for recreation anyway-Ben, for example, was neither a virgin nor a father-so I couldn't really understand what a person's gender had to do with anything. I thought he was merely being stubborn and abandoned that. It was pointless, anyway, and the school year came to a close soon after, regardless.

There is a human saying-"be careful what you wish for." It's a little to apt for my liking.

Anna, Ben's younger sister, came down for graduation, and we, along with Ben's aunt Eileen, went out for dinner that night. It was probably the nicest meal I'd had in a human body, which is the only pleasant thing I could say about the meal.

"Oh, hey," Anna said, about half-way through the meal, when we'd exhausted most of the obvious topics of conversation. "They're opening a chapter of that club you were talking about a few months ago-what was it called?"

I swallowed the mouthful of spaghetti I'd been chewing, rifling back through Ben's memory to find what she was talking about. Sure enough, there was a brief mention of the Sharing from when he'd first started going. I could feel Ben's resentment as I answered, "The Sharing?"

"Yeah. They've got one of those by me now." Anna wasn't looking at me, but down at her plate now. "My roommate's thinking of checking it out and wants me to go with her. Are you still going to that thing?"

I opened my mouth to respond-to rattle off the script that was meant to be used for these sorts of things-but no sound came out. Instead, my lungs seized and for a few breathless moments, it seemed like my throat had squeezed itself shut. The force of it took me by surprise and it took several long seconds before I could reassert control, pushing back until I came up for air again, breath coming out in a hacking cough. "Fuck," I wheezed, reaching a shaking hand for my water glass. Ben might be desperate, but I was still stronger than he was. Mostly.

Eileen patted me on the back, and Anna looked up from her food. "Go down the wrong way?"

My face screwed up into what was meant to be a smile, but didn't quite succeed. "Something like that," I said. Then I changed the subject. He wouldn't take me by surprise again, but even so, I didn't really want to die that day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3** **\- Summer**

Here's a secret: As time went on, I kind of liked Ben. I mean, he thought I was lower than scum, and that kind of put a damper on things, but other than that one fact, he was pretty all right. When I pushed, he pushed back. I liked that-it kept things from getting dull. There were other things, too, of course. I didn't give a rat's ass about human history, but Ben was passionate about it, and it was hard to ignore that. I couldn't ignore it, teaching it was, ostensibly, our job. For now, anyway. I tried to channel some of that passion in front of students, about whom Ben cared infinitely more than I did. When we looked a classroom, I saw twenty-some odd bratty teenagers I had to suffer. Ben saw... well, he also saw bratty teenagers, but apparently he appreciated them as _people_.

With school out for the summer, a long three months loomed ahead with little in the way of distraction. It took about a week for me to realize that I couldn't actually languish around the apartment for three months. For one thing, there was nothing to do there except read and watch soap operas on TV, neither of which sounded appealing. For another, there would be no money coming in until the fall. The only savings Ben had ever had in his life had been money from his parents' life insurance, and every penny of that had gone to college, and that hadn't covered it all anyway. The good news was that we'd probably starve before creditors started showing up, or before we got evicted.

Still, we were down to a sleeve of Ritz crackers and a quarter gallon of expired milk before I decided that contemplating the nutritional value of drinking vegetable oil straight was probably a bad idea. By that point, though, most places hiring summer help _had_ their help.

Which is how I ended up working at the Sharing's headquarters. In recruitment of all things.

Needless to say, any fondness I had for my host wasn't readily reciprocated. Though, as long as I wasn't actively recruiting people he cared about, Ben mostly kept his grumbling to a minimum. Mostly. Though, that said, it was surprisingly dull work that was more akin to marketing than anything else. Which I had no experience in whatsoever. My job was mostly clerical, which was fine, I supposed. It was relatively difficult to screw that up. "Office Lackey" wasn't the most prestigious position, but it was the perfect balance of "keeping busy" and "not very much responsibility"-truly, everything I ever wanted. It was probably little wonder that no one ever considered me for advancement in anything.

The summer passed with interminable slowness. One day seemed to bleed into another. I might have lost all track of time completely if not for the clockwork-like feeding cycle. It at least let me know how much time was passing, even if half the time I couldn't be bothered to remember the date unless someone had a calendar handy.

Which was probably why, one day in late July, when Anna called I didn't think much of it. Ben's sister called frequently-to chat. To gossip, even though I rarely knew who she was talking about. To complain that I didn't call _her_. "Why when I know you're going to call eventually anyway?" This was apparently the wrong thing to say.

Things would have been easier if I made an effort to make my host's family Controllers. It would have made my life infinitely simpler-and less annoying in some respects-but I was also a great fan of the status quo. I liked being the botherer, not the bothered. I saw nothing suspicious or treasonous in that, even if I also wisely kept all this to myself. I was lazy, not suicidal.

After the usual small talk, Anna asked, in a tone suddenly turned serious, "Are you doing anything special for tomorrow?"

"No," I said automatically, without even thinking about it. "Should I be?"

There was a long pause-long enough that I started to wonder just what I'd forgotten. "Ben," Anna said slowly, in what I knew to be her _are you a fucking idiot?_ tone. "Tomorrow's the twenty-third."

Oh. _Oh_. Shit. I backpedaled quickly, saying something about how I meant I'd just planned to spend a quiet day at home, that I wasn't feeling up to much more than that.

I'd been in Ben a little over three months by then. Long enough to know that the twenty-third of July was the anniversary of his father's death. Five years ago now, in an accident, the summer before Ben's last year of high school. Technically we'd both forgotten. There were other things to think about, to focus on. It wasn't my job to care about these things anyway, except as far as keeping my cover went.

Still. When we hung up, I stood there looking down at the phone for a moment, trying to formulate a thought. Something.

Don't. Please.

I slowly replaced the phone in its charger, then turned wordlessly and crossed the living room to the couch, where I fished out the television remote from where it had slipped between the cushions. I sat down, switched the TV on, and settled in to watch Maury Povitch continue his seemingly eternal search for the Father. 

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**A/N:** **So, like a dope, I forgot to look up whether or not Ben actually had a paying job. It wasn't till I started writing this chapter that I thought that maybe I should ask a teacher friend if student teachers got paid.**

 **They do not. (Or at least they don't here.)**

 **So. Uh. This story is AU in more ways than one. I'm sorry. I will attempt to fail less from here on out.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4** **\- Jenny**

Humans really loved metaphors, didn't they? Sometimes I would think that they didn't even think about it, metaphors were so ubiquitous. Not that Yeerks never used metaphors, of course. We did, but it seemed to me, at least, that we used them less frequently. Perhaps because we had fewer senses, or because unhosted Yeerks had a smaller environment to draw inspiration from, I didn't know. I wondered if other species were the same? I had only ever had a human host, I didn't know.

Humans liked to call coming to care for someone "falling for them." The more I thought about it, the more apt it seemed to me.

I "fell" twice. The second time was gradual, like falling asleep. The first time... the first time was like taking a swan dive off a cliff-incredibly stupid and probably suicidal.

The endless summer finally ended, and my time as an office lackey came to an end. School started again, and as long as the administration was mostly made up of my people, we were at least guaranteed steady employment and enough money to keep from starving. So, at least there was that. But that didn't mean I was done with the Sharing. I just moved from working in the office to being a "mentor"-the front line, so to speak, of recruiting the unsuspecting, the gullible and the desperate. Who thought I would be a good fit for that, I'll never know.

She was there because her roommate wanted to see what all the fuss was about, but didn't want to go alone. I happened to be sitting just behind them while we listened to Ardun Three-One-Six give the Sharing's spiel to the meeting. I think Ardun's approach probably worked very well for certain types. He was a lot more charismatic than most of the Sharing's leaders. He talked like a motivational speaker, wore his hair long, and looked like he couldn't be much more than thirty. I think his host was a youth pastor-a fact that would have explained the sudden influx of junior high-aged kids toward the end of September. Made sense, I guess. The church up the road had its youth group on Tuesdays. That meeting was on a Wednesday. It made Ben sick, but it was essentially what we were there for, too. Not that that probably helped.

Still, all that was to say, Ardun Three-One-Six was good if you wanted earnest enthusiasm. But he was also the sort of person who probably gave a little too much help to the idea that we were a cult.

"They really take themselves seriously, don't they?" The girl in front of me-the stocky blonde, rather than her more wispy-looking friend-turned sideways in her chair to address the girl next to her, so that I could see the arch of one skeptical brow.

The other girl laughed. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, I didn't think they'd be so intense."

"Oh well," the blonde said, leaning down to pick up her purse from the floor. "At least we can say we gave it a shot."

"Hey." I'd been leaning back in my chair, lazily contemplating how soon I could escape without looking bad-I had a stack of essays on the French and Indian War waiting for me in the car, thanks-and I thought I could at least make the barest effort. You couldn't get voluntary hosts if they didn't stick around, after all. I was helping. "Some of us get a little too into it, but we're not all wacko, I swear."

The blonde turned around to look at me. "Oh yeah?" But she was smiling at me, apparently amused about something. "How long have you been here?" When I told her about six months, she widened her eyes and asked, mock-seriously, "And did it change your life?"

"Totally," I replied, matching her tone.

She stared at me for an extra second, then laughed. Her friend still looked nonplussed. I soldiered on, anyway. "I mean, we do good stuff, and some people-" I nodded meaningfully at Ardun, who was now holding court amidst a group that was apparently more impressed than these two-"just take it kind of seriously, I guess. Their heart's in the right place, honest." I shrugged. "But you know, you get out of it what you feel like putting in. Most things are like that." I stood. "If you want to come back, I promise we won't make you spend all the time with the crazies." Most knew how to tailor what they said to their audience, anyway.

"Thanks," the wispy brunette cut in, grabbing her friends arm and pulling her towards the exit. "We'll think about it. Come on, Jenny."

The blonde-Jenny-followed, though she smiled back at me, saying, "Yeah. Nice meeting you..."

"Ben," I supplied. "See you around."

The next meeting, Jenny came back. Her friend did not.


End file.
